Rousseff campaign chief Santana surrenders to Brazilian police

Redacción de Reuters

1 MIN. DE LECTURA

RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 23 (Reuters) - João Santana, the architect of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's 2010 and 2014 campaigns, returned to Brazil and police are taking him to the city of Curitiba, the epicenter of a massive corruption probe, his spokesman said on Tuesday.

Police said on Monday they had a warrant for Santana's arrest after evidence showed engineering conglomerate Odebrecht had paid him funds siphoned from state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA in offshore accounts.

Santana said in a statement he was quitting the re-election campaign of Dominican Republic President Danilo Medina in order to defend himself from "baseless accusations." (Reporting by Pedro Fonseca; Writing by Caroline Stauffer)